Free Republic

UBS Group is planning to cut more than half of Credit Suisse Group’s workforce starting next month as a result of the bank’s emergency takeover. Bankers, traders and support staff in Credit Suisse’s investment bank in London, New York, and in some parts of Asia are expected to bear the brunt of the cuts, with almost all activities at risk, people familiar with the matter said. Staffers have been told to expect three rounds of cuts this year, with the first expected by the end of July and two more rounds tentatively planned for September and October, the people added,...

A group of creditors have filed legal action against the country’s financial regulator, arguing it violated Swiss law when it wrote down around $17 billion of bank bonds ... Credit Suisse Group AG bondholders have launched a legal challenge in Switzerland against regulators’ decision to write down $17 billion in securities as part of UBS Group AG’s rescue of the troubled bank last month. Bondholders holding about 4.5 billion Swiss francs ($5 billion) of Credit Suisse’s canceled debt want the decision to write down their bonds revoked or amended ... The bondholders are alleging the total write-down was disproportionately punitive...

...The deal for the bank... included the purchase of about $72 billion in loans, at a discount of $16.5 billion, and the transfer of all the bank's deposits, worth $56 billion. Roughly $90 billion in Silicon Valley Bank's securities and other assets were not included in the sale, and remained in the F.D.I.C.'s control.Silicon Valley Bank had roughly $175 billion in deposits before its collapse, an illustration of how extensive the withdrawals were before it was seized by regulators...As part of the deal, the F.D.I.C. will receive rights linked to the stock of First Citizens, which could be worth up...

A senior executive at Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse who claims to be “nonbinary” and “gender fluid” spent much of the past several years campaigning for LGBTQ inclusion in the global financial system as performance at the company declined. The financial institution named several “material weaknesses” with respect to risk assessment strategy in a recently published annual report. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority and the Swiss National Bank provided the company with $54 billion in liquidity on Thursday in order to prevent the collapse of the “systemically important” institution. Jordan Schachtel, an independent journalist at The Dossier, noted on...

Swiss National Bank said in a statement. “This takeover was made possible with the support of the Swiss federal government, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority and the Swiss National Bank,”

March 19 (Reuters) - UBS Group AG has offered to buy Credit Suisse for up to $1 billion, with the Swiss government planning to change the country's laws to bypass a shareholder vote on the transaction, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The proposed all-share deal between Switzerland's two biggest banks is set to be signed as soon as Sunday evening, the report said...

UBS Group AG triggered margin calls on some wealth management clients that use Russian bonds as collateral for their portfolios after marking down the value of debt issued by the country and its corporations. The Swiss wealth manager is calling on some investors to add either cash or securities to their portfolio after cutting the lending value of some Russian bonds to zero, people with knowledge of the matter said. While the sovereign bonds still trade around 50 cents on dollar, and many Russian corporate bonds are well above that, UBS’s move signals it essentially will no longer accept them...

During a hearing on election integrity in front of the Georgia Senate in December, Pulitzer told Georgia lawmakers that he hacked into Dominion voting machines at a polling place. He confirmed that the Georgia runoff machines were connected to the internet. In a 36-page report on foreign election interference, Pulitzer highlighted voting irregularities and election fraud in eight states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Here are some points in the report: The Chinese systematically gained control over our election system constituting a national security emergency The electronic voting machines were compromised and cannot be...

We know Hunter Biden, son of presidential candidate Joe Biden owns 10% of a private-equity firm called Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co (BHR); he acquired this interest in 2017 after leaving the BHR board. An investigation into Dominion Voting Systems by Austin Security and Investigation Solutions showed Staple Street Capital acquired Dominion Voting Systems in 2018. As noted by the Gateway Pundit, “On Oct 8, 2020, Staple Street Capital filed SEC Form D offerings and sales amount of $400,000,000 with the Sales Compensation Recipient identified as UBS Securities. “UBS Securities is a swiss investment bank which...

Eric Holder's resignation, just 40 days before the midterm elections, shows how jittery Obama is about losing control of the Senate this November. While Holder likely is getting out of Dodge before federal judges weigh in and order the release of documents showing he covered up the Fast and Furious and IRS email scandals, the timing of his resignation suggests that Obama wants to be sure that he has time for a Democratic lame duck Senate to confirm a replacement. With so much dirty laundry stacked up in the closets of the Justice Department, Obama didn't dare let in an...

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

From:doug@presidentclinton.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com, jpodesta@americanprogress.org, vbjorklund@stblaw.com, dreynolds@clintonemail.com, jreynoso@stblaw.com, terry@tdmca.com more Date: 2011-11-18 12:49 Subject: Fwd: Please see the attached memorandum on the Foundation and Teneo. Hannah/Justin, please print a copy for President Clinton. As always, I am available anytime to discuss this or anything. Thank you, Doug

UBS, the world's largest wealth manager, is facing embarrassment over fresh revelations going back to the tax investigation that led to the collapse of Swiss banking secrecy. Two significant events are looming before UBS. The first is the possibility of a public trial in France, featuring UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld, concerning historic tax evasion allegedly orchestrated by the bank. That could happen this year. The other is the publication this October of Birkenfeld's scathing new book, Lucifer's Banker, which covers his time at UBS. The tax evasion controversy, which was first highlighted in 2005, subsequently involved the US Department of...

Recently released emails appear to further show a direct connection between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, including efforts to get foundation donors seats to an official lunch with Chinese President Hu Jintao. In emails dated December 2010, Clinton State Department aide Huma Abedin and then-top Clinton Foundation official Doug Band discussed potential guests for the lunch with the Chinese president — including three executives from groups that had donated millions to the foundation, according to an ABC News report late Saturday. Among the possible guests discussed were Bob McCann, then-president of...

Back in July of 2014, we reported that in an attempt to obtain if not compensation, then at least confirmation of bank manipulation in the precious metals industry, a group of silver bullion banks including Deutsche Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC (later UBS was also added to the defendants) were accused of manipulating prices in the multi-billion dollar market.

The Swiss bank UBS is one of the biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton intervened to help it out with the IRS. And after that, the Swiss bank paid Bill Clinton $1.5 million for speaking gigs. The Wall Street Journal reported all that and more Thursday in an article that highlights huge conflicts of interest that the Clintons have created in the recent past. The piece begins by detailing how Clinton helped the global bank. “A few weeks after Hillary Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she...

A couple of readers asked me to comment on the news Regulator Fines Barclays Over the Pricing of Gold. A British financial regulator has fined Barclays $43.9 million after accusing a former trader at the bank of improperly influencing gold prices at the expense of a customer. The F.C.A. also fined the former Barclays trader, Daniel James Plunkett, £95,600 and barred him from participating in any regulated financial activity. The authority said Mr. Plunkett, who settled with it, had profited at the expense of a customer, who was later fully compensated by Barclays. Mr. Plunkett’s improper conduct occurred on June...

With countless settlements documenting the rigging of every single asset class, it was only a matter of time before the regulators - some 10 years behind the curve as usual - finally cracked down on gold manipulation as well, even though as we have shown in the past, central banks in general and the Fed in particular are among the biggest gold manipulators. That said, we are confident by now nobody will be surprised that there was manipulation going on in the gold casino. In fact, ever since Germany's Bafin launched a probe into Deutsche Bank for gold and silver...

The State Department (which Hillary Clinton used to run and where she still holds significant influence) has been very clear about one thing. There is no relationship between donations to the Clinton Foundation and actions taken by the Secretary of State during her tenure there. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. Perish the thought. You’re all just a bunch of Clinton haters who are trying to stop the ongoing charity work of these wonderful people. And yet for some strange reason we keep seeing stories like this. Hillary hadn’t even finished unpacking her things in her new office at...

For most people, pleading guilty to a felony means they will very likely land in prison, lose their job and forfeit their right to vote. But when five of the world’s biggest banks plead guilty to an array of antitrust and fraud charges as soon as next week, life will go on, probably without much of a hiccup. The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies, according to people briefed...